Spring-platform for railroad cars



C. H. LEWIS.

Car Bumper. No; 14,508. Patented Mar. 25, 1856 UNITED STATES PATENT()FFICE.

CHARLES H. LEWIS, OF MALDEN, MASSACHUSETTS.

SPRING-PLATFORM FOR RAILROAD CARS.

Specification of Letters Patent No. 14,508, dated March 25, 1856.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, CHARLES H. LEWIS, of Malden, in the county ofMiddlesex and State of Massachusetts, have invented a new and useful orImproved Safety Spring Guard or Platform for Railway-Carriages; and I dohereby declare that the same is fully described and represented in thefollowing specification and the accompanying drawings, figures, letters,and references thereof.

Of the said drawings Figure 1, denotes a side elevation, and Fig. 2, atop view of part of a railway car, having my invention applied to it;Fig. 3, is a horizontal section of the box platform and guard to beherein after described.

In the said drawings A denotes the car, B, the box platform, and G, theguard, the latter being arranged within the platform and formed as seenin Fig. 3, in order that it may not only be capable of being moved inand out of the same longitudinally with respect to the car body but turnhorizontally as occasion may require, in order to adapt itself to themovements of the car or cars, with which it acts in connection, the boxplatform being made to project from one end of the car.

In using the guard it is intended. that there should be one of them ateach end or to each platform of a car or carriage so that when two carsare arranged in train the guard at one end of one shall abut at itsfront end against the similar end of the adjacent guard of the othercarriage. The guard is affixed to the boX platform by flexible elasticband, springs D, D, which are arranged and bent around bearings as seenat a, a, I), 1). Besides these the guard is also connected to the rearpart of the chamber c, of the box platform by means of a check chain E,whereby its outward movement is not only arrested at a proper time; butit is permitted to play inward and laterally as circumstances mayrequire. The guard arranged and applied to a car becomes not only asafety apparatus to prevent persons from falling between the cars beenapplied to a railway carriage, there fore I do not claim such. In suchcase,however the platform was not connected to the body by the springs,nor were band or tension springs used as in my improvement. Neither wasthere any flexible check or hold back chain employed to act against thetension of the springs and also allow of the lateral movements of thesafety guard. The above described new and peculiar mode of connectingthe guard to the box platform, viz, by elastic band springs and a checkchain arranged as described is an important method of applying suchguard, as by means of such the front end of the guard can be madestraight, and the guard is not only allowed, by the springs, to haveforward and back motions, but lateral or turning movements.

Therefore I claim Connecting the guard to the box platform by elasticband springs and a check chain or its flexible-equivalent arrangedsubstantially in manner as described and so as to enable the guard notonly to adapt itself to the movements of the carriage but to maintainits place, or be arrested in its outward movement in the platform asstated.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my signature this eighth day ofSeptember A. D. 1855.

CHARLES H. LEWIS.

Witnesses:

R. H. EDDY, F. P. HALE, J R.

